I'm Here, You're There, We Are
by fourleafed
Summary: Kurt Hummel is 23, a senior in college, and on his way to what could be a very important job interview when he gets a call from his dad in Ohio. His old boyfriend, Blaine, is badly hurt. Kurt drops everything and heads home, but will Blaine make a recovery? [I AM working on an eighth chapter right now.]
1. Chapter 1

Kurt was 23 and standing at a crosswalk in downtown Brooklyn, New York, waiting for the walking man light, right before he got the news.

His phone rang three times while he tried to fish it out of his possiblytootight pants pockets. He exhaled into the receiver and Burt's voice replied, "Hello?"

"Dad?"

"Hey, Kurt. Um-"

"Dad, I'm sorry, can I talk to you in a sec? The light just turned green."

"Um. Yeah, Kurt, yeah, son, but I think-"

"One sec, Dad."

Burt mumbled something hasty in reply and Kurt half-heard it as he lowered the phone. He walked briskly into the street. Halfway across he had to stop for a cab that was completely disregarding traffic rules. "Hey! Watch it!" he shouted as it sped past the spot he had almost stood at. He breathed a sigh of relief when his toe edged up on the curb. He put the phone back to his ear.

"Dad? Still there?"

"Yes."

"Are you okay? You sound-"

"Blaine's hurt, Kurt."

"What?"

A stranger on the sidewalk suddenly erupted into song. He brushed up against Kurt and clung to his arm for a second before stumbling away, slurring a rendition of "My Girl." Passersby didn't blink or change pace.

"Dad, what did you say?"

"I said Blaine's hurt. And it's bad."

Kurt could hear his own breathing speed up before he felt it. "How? How bad?"

Quiet.

Kurt could almost see his dad putting a hand to his head, lifting his ballcap to rub at the hair that wasn't there, and letting the cap slide back into place.

"I think you needa come home, son."


	2. Chapter 2

March 26 2013, 7:30 AM

"Blaine."

"Mmph."

"Blaine, wake up."

"Not ready."

"Blaine!"

Something fell against Blaine's face, and he rolled over, lifting the offending object. It was a pillow. He flung it back at his attacker.

"If you're gonna hit somebody, don't leave the weapon, dummy."

Micheal whipped Blaine's blanket off of him.

"Morning pillow fights are excellent energy accelerants. Get up! We've gotta be at the Square by ten."

"What time is it now?" He sat up anyway, rubbing his hands through his hair.

"Just early enough to give you time to complete your insane fucking morning routine. Didn't you tell me it was even longer in high school?"

"Oh, yeah." Blaine laughed. The gel days. "Glad that's over with."

"Yeah, me, too. Keeps me from having to wake up at 6:30 to get your ass outta bed." Micheal danced away from the next pillow that Blaine threw. "Now get UP! I might even give you a courtesy blow job in the shower if you're quick about it." He disappeared into the bathroom.

Blaine grinned and launched himself off the end of his bed. "Doesn't that violate the 'just-friends-before-sunset' rule?"

"Who cares?" Micheal called back. He leaned out of the bathroom doorway. "Today we get to be extra-gay!" He tried to do jazz-hands with his toothbrush hanging out of his mouth, making Blaine laugh before he stepped in to start the water.

March 27, 5:30 PM

It only took Kurt twenty-five minutes to get back to his apartment in Bushwick. Traffic was smooth, his phone had a full battery, and he didn't have to root around in his satchel for his bus pass. But he didn't notice any of these rare conveniences.

He was throwing things into a bag (toothbrush, jeans, soap, I'm out of soap, why do I care about soap?) when Rachel slid the door open with some effort.

"Hey, hon, I got your text, what's happening with Blaine?"

"He's in the hospital."

SLAM. Bag packed. Kurt snatched it off the bed and it fell open immediately, scattering all of his things across the floor.

"Do you know why?"

"No."

He started to re-pack his things and Rachel sat stiffly beside him, biting her lip. The silence felt tense and he looked up.

"What?"

"Kurt." She reached for the shirt in his hands. "You're folding everything into eighths."

"It has to fit, Rachel," he snapped, but he let her put the shirt back in the bag, loosely folded in half.

"Kurt." She recognized the signs.

"What."

"It's-" She chewed on her lip and looked at him. "It's bad, isn't it?"

"Yeah." Kurt drew his knees up and rested his elbows on them. He reached back and straightened a perfectly neat piece of hair behind his left ear. He straightened it again. Rachel bit her lip so hard it almost bled. "I think it is."


	3. Chapter 3

March 26 2013, 9:45 PM

Blaine was decidedly uncomfortable.

The rally had gone well, for the most part; he'd held up his "Let Me Marry" sign and Micheal, ever the leader, had been at the front of the march. He'd met some interesting people. Everyone wanted to know his story, and he wanted to know theirs. It hadn't been aggressive. The few groups with "Adam and Eve" signs had left early, and some tried to be fairly vocal, but for the most part, they were quiet.

After the rally and a light dinner, Blaine, Micheal, and some of their friends (mostly Micheal's friends-Blaine still didn't have many of his own) retired to Spectrum. The idea was that, after a day of marching for rights, they would go to their favorite gay bar for a few drinks and relax with people who didn't need to be marched at.

Now Micheal was well over a few drinks in and he was flirting rampantly with nearly every patron. Blaine included.

"C'mon, babe. Danny's down for it. I'm down for it. Just gotta get you in on this now," he was saying, tapping at Blaine's arm. His breath smelled like rum. A short, buff guy, presumably Danny, was crawling up Micheal's other arm and staring at Blaine intently.

"Sounds fun, but I'm not interested."

"Blai-ine." Micheal put his chin on the bar and pouted. "You are NOT fun. I thought I was making you fun."

"You have made me fun. I'm in a bar, drinking in public. I marched in a rally today. That's more than I would have done three years ago." He sipped his drink and coughed a little. It was stronger than the last.

"You did march." Micheal hiccupped and laughed. "You marched in a political rally."

"Yeah, I did."

"Blaine Anderson." He put his hand on Blaine's arm. "Blaine-Don't-disturb-the-water-Anderson. Look at you now."

"I'm a regular heathen." He took another sip.

"You're a rebel. A rebel with a cause." Micheal laughed again. "It's kinda hot."

Blaine raised an eyebrow.

"What? It's after sunset," Micheal whined. "We don't have to-look, forget about Danny." Danny made a protesting noise in the background, which they both ignored. "Let's just go. I know, you don't wanna do it in a bathroom stall, you wanna go home, you wanna go to bed, everything proper, I get it."

Blaine took a gulp of his drink and he slid off his barstool. The second his feet hit the floor, he realized he was drunk. Everything was fuzzier than usual. And he really had to pee.

Micheal stood, too, and put a hand on his chest. "Let's go," he hissed, and licked up Blaine's neck to kiss him on the lips. Blaine let him. He kissed back.

"Wait," he said. "I've just gotta-I have to use the bathroom first." He stepped away from Micheal and made his way to the back of the bar, swaying a little as he walked. He still had his drink in hand. It was nearly empty; he wondered what happened to it. It had been full only seconds ago, it seemed.

He'd had his share of drunken hookups since college started three years ago. Mostly in sophomore year, at the tail end of which he'd met Micheal. They were fast friends and Blaine crushed on him for a while. Micheal wasn't the boyfriend type, though. Blaine pushed it down and they just became better friends, decided to live together junior year (Micheal's senior year). Somewhere down the line, Blaine realized he didn't really have a crush anymore, but he missed sex; and Micheal, who had been somewhat promiscuous from the start, jumped at the idea of Friends with Benefits. "But we won't call it that," he said. "Too big of a stigma."

So they'd settled into whatever they were. Friends, roommates, sexual partners. They enjoyed each other's company during the day; they brushed teeth in the same bathroom, ate meals together, hung out with the same people. And at night, they enjoyed each other's company in a different way. So far, it had been working well. Micheal would occasionally find some stud in a bar like Danny, but he'd rarely bring them back to the apartment. Blaine didn't look for anybody else. He found himself struggling to define what the difference between whatever he and Micheal were and what a "relationship" was, but decided that the feeling was what counted, and it didn't feel like a relationship.

Blaine was thinking about these things when the bathroom door was flung open. He jumped, zipped his fly, and turned around. Someone he recognized from the rally came in and slid into a stall. Blaine sighed at himself-I'm too drunk to be this jittery, he thought-and went to find Micheal.

Micheal was draped over Danny, groping at him drunkenly. Danny didn't seem to be reciprocating anymore. Blaine marched over in as straight a line as he could manage and tugged at Micheal's arm.

"C'mon, we're going home, remember?"

"Yeah, yeah," Micheal said. "Going home."

"Let's go." Blaine pulled him towards the door.

"Gonna get fucked," Micheal said loudly. A couple of members of the sparse crowd turned to look. "Sorry, Danny. You're gonna miss out. Blaine's so good at it. He can-"

"Michael."

"It's okay if he knows! He was gonna come." Micheal followed him out the door.

"Let's just-find out how to get home. We've gotta call a cab or something." Blaine rooted in his pockets for his phone. Rooted again. Nothing. "Let me see your phone, Mike."

"I can call a cab for you." Blaine looked up. The guy from the rally stood in the doorway. Blaine nodded.

"Thanks. Um, I have a free pass for the Blue Cab-"

"I could even take you home, if you want."

"Oh, well-" that was nice. Wait, was that nice or was that weird? Blaine tried to remember. He'd definitely had too much to drink, but he could do this. It was a little weird. Yeah. He'd go with that. "That's okay. We'll take a cab."

The guy stared at him for a second. "Alright." He pulled out his phone and dialed some numbers.

Blaine exhaled. Micheal leaned into him and trailed his hand up to his chest. "We should get home sooner," he said.

"Mm." Blaine nodded and reached for Micheal's hand. He evaded him and grabbed Blaine's ass instead. Micheal laughed.

"He said he'd meet you at the corner of the street," the Rally Guy interrupted. "Do you want me to wait with you? He looks pretty far gone, and you don't look that great either. It gets pretty rough out here after the bars close."

"Is it closing time already?" Blaine asked. He hadn't answered Rally Guy's question, but he was following him to the corner anyway. Rally Guy held up his phone so Blaine could see the clock. It was nearly one.

"Closing time," Micheal hummed, steadying his walk with one hand in Blaine's back pocket and the other on his arm. "Remember when you used to sing all the time, Blaine? You don't sing that much anymore."

"Yeah, it got..."

Blaine didn't finish his sentence because Micheal was suddenly gone from his arm. He looked down and saw him on the concrete and tried to register it. He was bleeding from his head.

"Hey, Mike-" He knelt down. "Come on."

Micheal didn't move. Blaine looked up to ask Rally Guy for help, and almost fell backwards when he saw that Rally Guy was very close to his face, and he held a long piece of wood.

"Don't move," Rally Guy hissed.

Blaine didn't move. He heard footsteps and tried to use just his eyes to see where they were coming from.

"Did you get them, Randy?" The footstepper asked. Rally Guy-Randy-stepped away from Blaine. "No, Martin," he replied. "These are just a couple of random dudes I lured into an alleyway. Yeah, I got them."

Martin held out a hand and Randy handed him the wood. Martin took it and leaned down close to Blaine.

"We saw you little faggots dancing tonight," he whispered. "We saw you marching at that rally."

Blaine didn't meet his eyes. Martin pulled back and before Blaine knew what was happening, the wood cracked down on his left shoulder. He cried out and fell all the way to the ground.

"You think you're special? You think you get to just rub up on each other in a public place? Think you can lead a bunch of animals to do the same?" He spat the word "animals" and brought the wood down on Blaine's other arm. There was a loud crack. Blaine turned his head to look at Micheal. Micheal wasn't moving.

"You're not special. You're nothing. You're bringing us down and I'm gonna make sure you don't get far."

Martin hit him again, this time in his side. Blaine curled up against the pain. He felt himself choking for air; it was hard to breathe.

"Mike," he tried, and Martin brought the wood down into his stomach. "Mike."

"Martin-"

"Check the other guy, Randy."

Randy leaned over Micheal. Blaine craned his neck to watch.

"He's passed out."

"Good." Martin stood over Blaine and turned to Randy. "Hit him a few more times."

Blaine tried to move. He scooted around, holding his stomach, trying to turn. "No, no-"

"Shut up." Martin leaned down again. "You got any brothers, faggot?"

Blaine didn't answer.

"Well, I've got a brother. And my brother there needs to learn a lesson about faggots." He lifted the wood and pointed it at Randy. Blaine glimpsed the man out of the corner of his eye, and he looked boyish. Blaine tried to think of why. "They aren't like us. They shouldn't live like us." He brought it down a final time, this time on Blaine's head. The world swam in front of Blaine's eyes. He was vaguely aware of Martin and Randy moving towards Micheal, and he realized why Randy had looked boyish. It was because he was crying.

The last thing Blaine saw was the wood, the wood, he recognized it; it was from a rally sign. A sign he'd seen. A sign in their group.

Randy and Martin had marched with them, not against them.


	4. Chapter 4

Kurt was home within a day. Rachel had stayed behind in New York; she'd moved out over a year ago, but said she'd keep the place warm for when he got back, whenever that might be. So he'd left here there, taken only one bag with him on the soonest flight he could get, and he arrived home at 10:03 PM the night after he'd gotten the phone call from his dad.

Burt hugged him hard as soon as he got in the door.

"I wanna see him now."

"It's past visiting hours, son."

"I don't care, Dad. I want to see him."

Burt sighed, exasperated already. Kurt looked at him. He was tired. He'd had a long week. It was written on his face. Kurt felt guilty.

"We can see him first thing tomorrow. How's that?"

"...Yeah. That's fine, Dad."

Burt clapped him on the shoulder and shuffled towards the kitchen. "How about some tea?"

"Since when do you make tea?" Kurt asked, but he didn't turn him down. He put his bag on the floor by the coat rack and followed Burt.

"Since I knew you were coming home. I bought this vanilla...crap, it's s'posed to ease stress, but..."

Kurt laughed. "Sure. I'll have some, Dad."

Once the tea was made, they sat together in the living room. Burt's face was serious.

"...Are you going to tell me what happened?"

"I guess there's no point in waiting." Burt took a breath. "He got beat up in an alley just outside of Columbus. They really, uh...they did a number on him."

"Columbus? That's over an hour away."

"Yeah. They airlifted him here, 'cause they thought..." Burt stopped. He reached for his tea and took a sip. It didn't go down right and he coughed a little. "They figured he wouldn't make it. Wanted him to be near family."

Kurt didn't know what to say. He was sure he had questions, but he couldn't think of any.

"And-something else." Burt looked at Kurt intently. "He was with somebody."

"What, a friend? Was it anybody I know? Is there someone else-"

"No, Kurt, I don't think it's anybody you know. Some...some guy he was seeing at college..." He waited to gauge Kurt's reaction. There was none. "But the guy-he got attacked, too, they were both attacked."

Kurt shook his head, not understanding. "Why are you telling me this?"

"'Cause the guy he was with-" Burt paused again. He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. "That poor kid didn't make it, Kurt. He didn't survive the attack."

Kurt drew in a breath. He didn't realize he was still holding his tea until a little of it splashed hot onto his knee. He looked down. His hands were shaking.

"Kurt."

Kurt put the tea on the table and dabbed at the spot of it on his jeans. It wouldn't come out.

"Kurt."

He looked up at his dad. Burt looked sadder than he'd seen him in years; he hadn't seen his dad like this since his mom died.

Burt reached over the table and pulled Kurt's hand into his own.

"We're gonna go see Blaine tomorrow, okay?"

Kurt nodded numbly.

"I can't promise it'll be pretty. I don't want you to get your hopes up. He's out of it; in a coma; he can't hear us, he doesn't know we're there. And they-" he hesitated again, bringing his other hand around to wrap around Kurt's. Kurt felt his grip tighten. "The doctors don't know if he'll wake up. But we're gonna go see him. That's the best I can give you. Okay?"

Kurt nodded again, keeping his eyes trained on his shoes. He saw a drop fall on the toe of his boot, and then another, and it registered that he was crying.

Burt stood up and tugged Kurt into another hug. It felt suddenly to Kurt like he hadn't been hugged by his dad in years. Like he hadn't been home in years, and he was coming home for the first time now. Even though Thanksgiving break hadn't been so long ago, and he'd been home then. He curled into Burt and cried.

"Okay, son. We're gonna be okay."

They stood like that for a minute, and Kurt's brain seemed to start working again. It was groggy, but he had a question.

"Did they catch them? The ones who did it?"

Burt hugged Kurt harder. "Yeah. They got 'em."


	5. Chapter 5

March 29 2013, 9:30 AM

Blaine floated on his back for a while. The sun was high, but the heat was bearable. His parents were still on the shore. Cooper splashed around near the beach, trying to impress the girl he'd just met. Blaine closed his eyes and listened to them, everyone talking, and now and again the water would flood his ears and all the sounds would be muffled. It was peaceful. Just floating, hearing but not seeing, being detached. He hoped they would come back here next summer.

"Blaine!"

He splashed and nearly lost his buoyancy when he heard his mother's voice calling sharply to him.

"Don't go out that far! Stay where we can see you."

He rolled his eyes. He was fifteen, for Pete's sake. He knew how to swim.

He couldn't stay mad at his mom as he swam closer to the beach. The sun felt too good on his back, the water too good around him. His eyes were drifting closed again, and he turned over to keep floating.

Newly fifteen, and nothing bad in the world had happened to him yet.

_"Blaine."_

Blaine was fifteen and a half when he and his dad had The Argument.

"If it's just a PHASE, why can't I take him to the dance?"

"Because, Blaine! You will get some idea stuck in your hard head that this is who you are, and you are too young to know who you are."

"I know what I want! This is what I want! Why can't you support me?"

"You told me that you didn't even like this boy."

"I don't. We're just friends."

"Then I don't see why this is so important to you. You're not going to a school dance with a boy. I'm firm on this."

"Why?"

"I said, it's done, Blaine."

"WHY?"

"Do NOT ask me again, or we will exchange words that you like a lot less than the ones we've just had."

"Like 'fag'?"

Mr. Anderson stopped with his back still turned to Blaine.

"Like 'queer?' I heard you talking to Mom yesterday."

Mr. Anderson turned around and walked until his chest almost touched Blaine's. He was taller by a wide margin, and not a weak man, but as Blaine looked up at him, all of his fear changed into something else. Defiance. Bravery. The need to stand up for himself.

"Blaine Anderson, you are not gay. You are not to go to the dance with a boy. And you will not use those words in my house."

"Why not? You do. And it's true. I am gay." Blaine trembled, saying it aloud like that. He'd said it before, but not so directly, and not to his dad. "I want to dance with boys. I like boys. I'm queer, Dad. I'm a fag, just like you said-"

He didn't even feel the slap. He heard it, but it didn't register until his dad backed away, hand still raised. It didn't start to sting until he lowered it and said in low tones, "To your room, Blaine."

Blaine didn't move. He stared at his Dad and touched his cheek. It was hot. His eyes were watering. He felt like he was five, being yelled at to keep his hands away from the stove-it had been to protect him, but he'd cried anyway, because they yelled so loudly. He thought then that he must have been a terrible child.

Mr. Anderson spoke again, softly. "Go to your room, son."

Blaine did. He turned and ran upstairs to his room and didn't come out for breakfast the next morning, didn't stop to say hello when he got home from school, didn't eat dinner until his dad was already in his study, absorbed in his work.

He would go to the dance with Nick, he decided. He would go and he would have the best time ever, and he would prove to his dad that being gay wasn't a bad thing. That he could dance with boys and live happily ever after and be a good person.

_"Blaine, it's okay."_

Blaine was fifteen and a half plus one week when he danced with a boy for the first time.

It was...okay.

It was better than dancing with girls. It was harder, though, because there was some discrepancy about who should lead, but once they got the hang of it, it was nice. Nick's back was firm under his hand, his shoulder broad. Occasionally, Blaine's hand would slip on Nick's shoulder, or he'd misplace it after a turn, and he'd feel Nick's hair brush his fingers. It really was nice. They were only friends, but the dance felt intimate.

They left a little early. "Let's get some air," Nick had said, making Blaine's heart jump a little, so they went outside and sat on the curb of the school parking lot. Nick's dad was due to pick them up in thirty minutes. Thirty minutes felt like a long time all of a sudden, thought Blaine.

"That was fun," Blaine said anxiously.

"Yeah." Nick smiled at him, then smiled up at the sky. It wasn't quite dark yet, but Venus and Jupiter were shining brightly. "It really was. Thanks for asking me, Blaine." He reached for Blaine's hand and Blaine let him take it, in awe of how their fingers entwined. And thirty minutes was starting to feel like not enough time.

"So, do you want to-"

"Hey, gayboys!"

They both jumped. Blaine turned to look behind him and saw three angry boys walking towards them.

"Wanna dance with us, huh? We heard you like dancing with boys."

Blaine and Nick stood up, but they weren't fast enough, and the boys jumped on them.

"We don't like fags in our school," Blaine heard, and then a punch square to the nose distracted him from any other sounds around him. He did his best to curl into a defensive pose. One of the guys kicked him in the stomach and his breath left him. He rolled over, trying to suck oxygen back into his lungs. Another one punched his shoulder and heard the words "fucking disease" thrown at him before, finally, they left. They ran, cackling and high-fiving. Blaine could do nothing but glare.

He coughed and inhaled a gulp of air before standing weakly to check on Nick.

"Nick, are you okay?"

Nick was sitting with his head between his knees, shoulders shaking.

"Nick."

He looked up, and Blaine saw blood on his face, a purple mottled bruise already sprouting on his cheek. He guessed that he didn't look any better.

"I'm sorry," Blaine said.

Nick shook his head and then dropped it down again, crying heavily now.

Blaine heard his voice, small and muffled. "Maybe we shouldn't hang out anymore."

_"Blaine."_

Blaine coughed and inhaled a gulp of air before standing weakly to check on Nick.

"Nick, are you okay?"

Nick was curled up in defense with his back to Blaine. Blaine stepped gently towards him.

"Nick."

He didn't move. Blaine knelt over him and then shrank back in fear. He was bloody, bloody everywhere, and Blaine was bloody too, he realized, and something about Nick wasn't right, wasn't-

_"Blaine!"_

-he didn't look real, and Blaine rushed around to the front of him, lifted his head and saw two broken teeth and remembered what his lips felt like on his after sunset, but his lips were bloody and everything was broken and he curled over him, sobbing-"Mike, Mike-"

_"Someone, help!"_

-there was a ringing in his ears, a flat tone that drove him mad, and he gripped Mike's shoulders so hard his fingers bit the skin-

_"Stay with me, it's gonna be okay, stay here, Blaine!"_

-bitingbitingbiting, and he was probably hurting Micheal, if he could feel anything at all, so he let go and-

_"Thank you. Thank you."_

-the tone stopped. It grew steady, an electric metronome in the background. He sighed and sank into the pleather backseat of the tan Taurus that was taking him home. He looked to his left as discretely as he could to see Nick staring out the window, holding a cloth to his face and still crying, but quietly now. Blaine looked down at his hand to see that he had a cloth as well, and he lifted it to his nose. Nick's dad glanced at him and Nick in the rearview mirror every few seconds. Nick was pressed against the car door, putting as much space between Blaine and him as was possible.

Blaine felt the tears start again.

He just wanted to go home.


	6. Chapter 6

March 29, 2013 7:30 AM

Burt Hummel never planned on having more than one child.

After Elizabeth died, he didn't think he could take the hurt. He didn't think he could stand to love someone else, only to lose them the way he had lost her.

So he avoided it, avoided love, for as long as he could. He loved Kurt and would not let anything happen to Kurt and that was enough.

Kurt introduced him to Carole when he was in high school. He remembered hearing about her son first, some kid Kurt had a crush on, and he figured it would fade; but then he met her, and he fell so hard and fast he didn't have time to guard his heart. So it was that Burt Hummel's heart was cracked open, little by little, and his family grew. The number of people he truly loved grew. Carole, Finn, Kurt-they did well together. And Burt was happier with two sons than he knew he could be.

Then, Kurt met Blaine.

Burt thought he was a little cocky at first. Showing up in his kid's bed, coming into his shop and giving him parenting advice-but he could tell Blaine cared, really cared, about Kurt. That softened him. And there was just something about that kid that he liked.

When they started dating, he wasn't surprised in the least. Burt could have told you that those two kids loved each other from the minute he first saw them in the same room together. He was happy for them. Kurt seemed happier than he had been in years-Blaine gave him something that Burt, Carole, and Finn could not. A kind of family all to himself. A kind of love that everyone, at some point in their lives, grows to need, a kind that no parent can give. For that, Burt was grateful. So Blaine was added to their little family. Another person to reserve a space in Burt's heart.

When they broke up, he was surprised. He was worried. The concern didn't last long, though; It became obvious to him that Blaine still loved Kurt, and Kurt, though he tried to deny it, loved Blaine. Hell, Kurt may even have fooled himself into thinking he didn't anymore, but he couldn't fool Burt.

So Burt waited. Waited for them to realize what they felt. And while he waited, Blaine wormed further and further into his heart, even while he was apart from Kurt. He would come over on weekends and watch football with him and Finn. He would help Carole in the kitchen when she felt like baking. Sometimes, he would join their Friday night family dinners.

When Kurt and Finn went away to college and the army, it was quite a blow for both Burt and Carole. They didn't know what to do with themselves. They had spent the better part of their lives single-handedly raising their sons, revolving around their needs and wants, and suddenly they just weren't anymore. Their sons were adults, and when had that happened, anyway? What were they supposed to do with their lives now?

Blaine softened the blow. He kept coming over for those dinners. Sometimes, Burt would let Blaine and the Glee kids hold practice in the house just to hear some familiar, angsty teenage voices.

When Burt got sick, Blaine was there. He reported back to Kurt, he brought Burt the sports section of the local newspaper and chipped in when he went on about how a change needed to be made in the lineup next year, and sometimes, in idle moments, he'd flip through a Vogue while Burt flipped through the channels on the TV. It was comforting and familiar. Almost like having Kurt there.

Burt fell asleep in his chair one day while Blaine was there, zipping about and making tea, and when he woke up, Blaine was gone. He figured he'd left for the day-good for the kid, he doesn't do enough for himself, he should get out more. But he walked upstairs and found him asleep on Kurt's bed.

Burt knew that as much as he missed his sons, he had another one right here.

No one could replace Kurt. But no one could replace Blaine, either, or Finn. Somehow, Burt's promise of avoidance, his promise to himself to protect his heart, had been utterly shattered, and he didn't regret it one bit. He loved his family. He would go on loving them and protecting them until the day he couldn't anymore.

He just hadn't thought that day would be today. Hadn't thought it would be like this.

Burt sat with Kurt in the waiting room; they'd gotten there thirty minutes before visiting hours, at Kurt's insistence; and he watched his son white-knuckle the arm of a chair for a good fifteen minutes before he reached over and took his hand.

"Remember how you sat with me, when I had my heart attack?"

Kurt nodded and a tear glittered at the corner of his eye.

"We're gonna do just that with Blaine. Okay?"

Kurt squeezed his hand and Burt squeezed back. They knew what it meant. It meant, things will be okay. Even when they're not okay, even when it seems like nothing will ever be okay, things will be okay. Because we're both here.

So they were going to go in there and make it okay.

Because, goddammit, Burt was not losing another person. Kurt was not losing another person.

Burt would not watch someone they loved die again.


	7. Chapter 7

March 29, 2013 8:20 AM

"Hey, Blaine."

The room smelled like rubber. Kurt lingered in the doorway.

"…I'm sorry I haven't been around in a while."

Pastel pink walls.

"I came for Thanksgiving, but Dad said you were spending it in Columbus."

Curtain around the bed, half-open.

Kurt sniffed and walked towards the chair by the bed.

"I should have come home for Christmas. I, um—"

Kurt stopped. There were various machines surrounding Blaine's bed, all whose functions about which Kurt had no clue. Wires were creeping from the machines under a loose blanket that covered most of Blaine. It was pulled nearly up to his neck, and Kurt followed the path of the wires.

He saw his shoulder first, his left shoulder, and though it was wrapped, he could see it sticking out all wrong, too sharp; and then his right arm, encased in a cast; he could make out a bruise on the naked collar between them. Then his eyes went to Blaine's face and he felt cold. A long white bandage covered the top of his head all the way to his temple. His eyes were closed and sunken, his left cheek bruised. A white strip covered part of his mouth and nose, and an attached tube snaked its way into his mouth, forcing his lips to part. His jaw was slack. He looked much thinner than the last time Kurt had seen him, thinner than the last photo he'd posted to Facebook, half a picture, him grinning in the sun with the arm of some unknown cut out boy slung around his shoulders.

Burt had told him it would be bad. Kurt hadn't expected it to be _this_ bad. It was not beautiful. It was not poetic or romantic. There was no sunlight wafting through the window to caress Blaine's cheek, and if there had been, it would not have seemed warm at all. Kurt reeled with a sudden wave of nausea and eased himself into the chair beside Blaine's bed.

He breathed hard for a long minute, keeping his head turned away from the bed. Finally, he felt his body relaxing enough to look over. The fingers of Blaine's left hand peeked from under his blankets. Kurt reached for them tentatively and brushed them with his own fingers. He stared at Blaine's hand to keep himself from looking at Blaine's face. He could almost pretend everything was fine, except that Blaine's fingers were pale and thinner than he remembered—he hadn't held them in over a year—and as he stroked Blaine's hand, the heel of his hand kept touching one of the wires that were monitoring him or keeping him alive or doing something else that Kurt didn't understand at all.

Blaine moved, suddenly, jerked in his sleep. Kurt looked at him, alarmed.

"Blaine."

His eyes didn't open.

Kurt let their fingers entwine fully.

Blaine twitched again and a breath shuddered out of him. Kurt yanked his hand back, afraid he'd hurt him.

"Blaine? It's okay."

Blaine's mouth opened around the tube and he bit down. Kurt reached for his hand again, suddenly overwhelmed by the need to comfort him and be comforted himself.

"Blaine." It was all he could say. His name. He couldn't think of any other words right now, just Blaine, Blaine, Blaine, wake _up,_ Blaine.

Blaine jerked again. Kurt clung to him, but this time he didn't stop jerking, and Kurt stood from the chair and leaned closer, tightening his grip on Blaine's hand. He punched the call button and put his hand on Blaine's head, trying to still him.

"Blaine!" he cried, as if shouting would make it better, but Kurt felt panic rising in his throat and the volume of his voice rose with it and it felt uncontrollable to him. Blaine began to moan around the tube in his mouth and his shoulders rose and fell as if he was being hit again and again, while the various beeping monitors around him were sounding off erratically and frantically. And no one was coming, hadn't he hit that button forever ago, what was taking so long? "Someone, help!"

Two nurses ran in and called out for a third. They didn't make Kurt leave, or maybe they tried and he just didn't notice, because he was still gripping Blaine's hand with both of his while they moved around him and he couldn't hear anything anymore except for his own voice saying, "Stay with me, it's gonna be okay, stay here, Blaine!"

Two nurses rolled Blaine to one side and they spoke but Kurt didn't listen. Another gently pushed Kurt until he stepped aside so they could adjust the wires and the tubes and the IV.

Blaine stilled. His head drifted down to the pillow and his mouth went slack again. The nurses rolled him back onto his back and opened his eyes, checked his pulse, pulled back one lip to look in his mouth. The erratic beeping slowed and became normal again, a rhythmic electronic pulse in the background that comforted Kurt.

Kurt pressed his forehead to Blaine's chest and murmured thanks to the nurses, thanks to the machines, thanks to Blaine. He kept his hands clasped around Blaine's and his head down and he didn't even notice when the nurses left. He didn't notice his feet start to hurt, he didn't notice the cramp in his arm, he didn't notice anything else until Burt came in and wrapped his arms around his son and tugged at him until he turned and let his dad hold him the way he had when his mom was in the hospital and he couldn't get her to talk to him no matter how many times he said her name.

Burt didn't say anything. He just hugged Kurt. He looked down at Blaine over Kurt's shoulder, and at the hand that was over the covers now, the one Kurt had been holding, and prayed for the first time in a long time.


	8. Chapter 8

April 3rd, 2013

The name "Blaine" means "yellow."

Yellow like the sun, yellow like the tail of one blazing meteor that Blaine had seen during a shower when he was seven, yellow like the flecks in Blaine's hazel eyes that Kurt has seen up close too many times to count.

Blaine knew this, because he looked it up on a whim one day. His mother had chosen "Blaine" for his first name, and his father chose "Devon" for his middle name—which refers to, much less interestingly, a county in England known for its farmland.

Blaine's older brother Cooper had always called him "Squirt"—"which simply meant "a small and mildly annoying younger sibling."

Blaine had come to him with the names. Cooper remembered it vividly—he'd forgotten it, he hadn't thought of it in years, but as soon as he stepped into Blaine's hospital room and saw him there, he remembered. Little curly-headed Blaine, a big book of baby names in hand, stumbling into Cooper's room and stopping at his desk with his fingers closed in the book to mark his pages. He was eight years old.

_"Let's find yours, Coop," he said, after they had pondered every deeper meaning of "Yellow" and "English farmland" that they could._

_"Barrel maker," Cooper read, disappointed. That was almost duller than "farmland."_

_Blaine flipped through the pages, intent on hunting down Cooper's middle name to make up for the first one._

_"'Jay' means 'swift,'" Blaine told him. "What does 'swift' mean?"_

_"It means really, really fast," Cooper said. He was more satisfied with "swift." The Flash was swift. Cheetahs were swift. He could deal with "swift." Maybe he'd go by "Jay" from now on._

_"A swift barrel maker," Blaine said._

_"Shut it, Squirt."_

Cooper thought about how just how small he seemed as he sat beside his brother, watching his eyes flick behind his eyelids and the slow and subtle movement of his chest, up and down, the only signs that he was still alive.

His bones seemed to stick out everywhere—cheeks, knuckles, shoulders, collar. This was the result of lying in a hospital bed for a week, tube-fed and unmoving. The only change in Blaine's condition was that he had infrequently begun to twitch and make small sounds at night. Dr. Marshall, with whom the Andersons were becoming well-acquainted, said that he might be having dreams, and that it could be a good sign.

Cooper didn't think it looked like a good sign. He thought it looked like his brother was having the worst nightmare of his life. Still, he stayed past regular visiting hours to watch it happen; to see Blaine's fingers jerk, and his head fall to the side; to pull the blanket back up to his chin when one particular motion knocked it askew; to put a hand on Blaine's arm and pretend that, when Blaine's toes wiggled, it meant that he felt Cooper's touch.

The name "Blaine" means "Yellow," and it had always suited him. Energetic, sunny, optimistic. And so very alive.

_C'mon, Squirt, wake up._


	9. Chapter 9

_Blaine woke up on a Saturday, and Kurt was not there._

It was always the same dream. Kurt would open his eyes to find that he was soaked with nervous sweat and his teeth were painfully clenched. The first time it happened, he bolted from his bed and stumbled deliriously into the living room, where Rachel was asleep on the couch—she'd been staying with him since he got back to New York—and begged her to wake up because they had to go home, back to Ohio, Blaine was awake, but Rachel only shook her head softly and waited for him to realize it wasn't real.

Only a dream.

He wouldn't leave the bed this time. Rachel needed her sleep—she had auditions in the morning, meetings in the afternoon. Her life was going on. Kurt's was…well, it was going on, but he didn't really feel it happening anymore.

He'd returned to New York only a week after Blaine was admitted to the hospital. He couldn't miss any more school, and as understanding as Isabelle was, he couldn't miss any more work, either.

Two weeks later, he thought he might as well have stayed at home. He wasn't focused. He wasn't present. He did not feel alive. He was the least productive he'd ever been, and even when he was working, he was always conscious of the weight of his phone in his pocket, always waiting for it to ring with news of Blaine.

There was no news. All that Kurt knew had come from that first day at the hospital, when he saw Blaine in that bed for the first time…he shuddered remembering it. After his visit, he and his dad had pieced together what they could from the accounts of doctors and police, and from whatever the Andersons were willing to tell them.

_ "Bartender found them on the sidewalk. Micheal was already—"_

_"…Internal bleeding, broken bones, brain swelling, possible permanent neural damage. We won't know until the swelling goes down or until he wakes up."_

_"…brought in around two in the morning, had been out there for an hour at least…"_

_ "If he wakes up, he might not be the same." _

_"It's lucky they found him when they did."_

_ "He might not wake up."_

Kurt curled into his blankets and fought back sleep. He had to do something. He had to go back to Ohio. School was going to end soon, anyway; he could take his exams early. Blaine needed him. He was his best friend. And maybe a little more.

Kurt reeled in his thoughts, frustrated. He shouldn't be thinking of Blaine that way right now. They had been broken up for years—it wasn't like that anymore. He didn't need to complicate this situation any further, especially not over something so trivial.

They had remained good friends. The break-up was mostly mutual. They didn't want to do long distance, Kurt wanted to explore, Blaine was going to be so busy with Glee club and student government and everything else. It took months, and a few collegiate hook-ups, for Kurt to feel sort of okay about it. But once he felt okay about it, he stayed that way. He barely thought of what their relationship had been or what it could have been had they stayed together. He didn't have time for it. And neither, he assumed, did Blaine, especially not when he started college, and all the boys flocked to him, as Kurt knew they would. Admittedly, he had been forced to set some rules for himself about Facebook stalking Blaine's new friends. But he'd been okay. Great, even. He'd had a boyfriend here and there, some casual, some more serious. He was always busy with job interviews, schoolwork, and Rachel's ever-present drama. He'd been great. He had not thought of KurtandBlaine, the entity that was separate from Kurt and Blaine, in over a year when the accident happened.

Kurt shuddered again. The "accident." Was that what he was going to call it? It wasn't an accident. It was a hate crime. He had steered clear of the news, so afraid he might see the faces of the men who did this. He didn't want to know what they looked like. He didn't want to know that they were real people.

No matter what horrible things he might read or hear—a woman raped in an empty subway car, a bomb near a shopping mall, a school shooting—he had always felt safe. Those were not things that could happen to him or anyone close to him. They were far away and impossible. Kurt didn't even realize how ignorant that feeling was, or that he even _had _such a feeling, before Blaine got hurt.

Kurt just wanted to pretend that those kinds of people could not possibly exist.

He felt himself slowly drifting off to sleep. He was going to have the dream again, he knew it as he sank further, but that was okay. In his dream, at least Blaine was awake, even if Kurt was not there to greet him.

His mind's eye had just begun to pan down over the pale yellow curtains that covered Blaine's bed when he heard his phone ring.

Groggily, he reached for it, and pressed "answer" without even looking at the caller ID.

"Hello?" he asked.

"…Kurt?"


End file.
